Two Horses, One [Lousy] Picture

Aaaaaand we might be back to the land of "I rode my horses today and no one was around to take pics."

But whatever. I RODE MY HORSES TODAY. BOTH OF THEM.

Red was, of course, perfect. The dude loves to go forward. He does not like to stand still, especially when I have to adjust my stirrups. And I realized why I felt a little off-kilter in the saddle yesterday.

This is it. Your only pic for this post.

My right stirrup was about an entire hole longer than my left one. They were both on Hole 11. Way to go, "non-stretch" Antares leathers. And go me for getting that half pad di-rectly over his spine. Everyone is winning. But the other thing you can see is that I really really do need the insanely forward flap on my saddle. This isn't even my "the jumps are big" length and I'm taking up most of the knee roll. Since flaps more forward than this are not made, and a seat size bigger would be too big, this is what I'm working with. I always thought I was a pretty normal-sized person until saddle shopping made me realize that I'm a freak. But whatever. I'm sure having the femur of a 6'1" person on my 5'8" frame will be good for something eventually.

After I hopped off Red (who offered the same delicious stretchy engaged trot as yesterday AND stayed off my left leg after I fixed the damn stirrup) and threw my horses out, I tossed all my tack in the car and sped over to M's so I could see my precious dumpling, Mo. I didn't take a single picture of him today, partly because I was in a hurry and wanted to spend every minute I might need riding, and partly because he looks like he's from Fraggle Rock. My goal for the weekend is to reclaim his mane. If we can get any further grooming done, it'll be a miracle.

Here's the skinny: Mo was better for the tacking up process than I thought he might be. His head-shy issues are certainly back, but I think we'll be able to fix it again if we just keep messing with him. I got his bridle on with no issues, and as we headed up to the ring I thought I detected a certain pep in his step. So I opted not to hook up the side reins before lunging juuuuust in case. Sure enough, one flick of the whip and it was ON.

It was hilarious, really. He bucked hard for three or four laps on the lunge. M and I both burst out laughing. She was sitting on a horse and hollering at Mo: "Is that the best you can do? That's NOTHING." It was so, so funny. Once he got through it, he was licking his lips and trotting around like a school horse. What a dork. M said she thought it was funny that he was walking in and out every day like a dope but he had this huge bucking fit in him. I guess he saved it up for me. I'd have stayed on had I been in the saddle, but I'm glad I was lunging.

After I was pretty confident that he was done with being a butt, I hopped on. He was really, really good. His only job today was to stay in front of my leg (because a horse who's reaching with the front legs isn't about to buck you off or leap sideways). He did that pretty well, though his patented Mo laziness was in effect. I just kept my leg on and he was fine. It's no mystery why he didn't work out as a racehorse. As he often does when he's out of shape, he was really leaning on my hands at times. He'll get over it without undue fuss from me. I was happy today to just trot around a little. I can add transitions and whatnot in the next few days to get him off my hands and in front of the leg.

So that was my day with the boys. They're fabulous. I was happy with how I was riding. I know we're going to have more chilly days ahead, but I think the riding is about to get a whole lot more consistent. I sure hope it is, anyway, because I feel much better today and I need more of this in my life.

Riding a Red Horse

THE FOOTING IS THAWED!!!

Of course, it's pouring right now, so tomorrow it might be under water, but today I had time to ride Red. Not Mo (sniffles), but I can put water wings on him and hack around tomorrow in the mud, no worries.

Thank god.

I really needed to get on a horse ASAP. This has not been an easy year so far over here, and riding has been minimal thanks to all the shitty weather that I've been complaining about endlessly. So even though all we did today was a little bit of walk/trot (because you don't take a 17yo ex-show jumper with an old suspensory injury and push him beyond that when he's had a month off), it was excellent.

Let me tell you. Red is a very nice horse to sit on. You should all come over and ride him.

Who, me? Aw shucks.

He LOVES his job. Loves it. So his walk was big and forward and swinging right from the get-go. And after about, oh, 15 minutes of walking around, we picked up a big, lovely trot. All I did was loop the reins at him, and he stretched over his topline looking for the bit and powered around, stepping under himself, all with no input from me. I just had to sit up and smile. I mean, if I'm being truly picky, he was a leeeeeeeeeeeetle bit leaning on my inside leg going left, but I can fix that. I'm out of riding shape too, and so I'm not sure I was sitting my best.

I could stare at this picture all day.

Oh, and one other fun thing--my mom gave me an antique but still usable sewing machine, so I tried making a pad like Lauren wrote about. It turned out okay, function-wise, and it was fun to do. So I'll be practicing my stitching and making some more! I'll write about it later, but at the moment, I'm excited to have some baby pads in colors I like, with a forward-enough cut to accommodate my ridiculous saddle, with wither relief, and with girth loops. It's true that one could acquire run of the mill baby pads for way less than it'll cost me to make them (and it's quicker to just give Smartpak more of my money), but this is more fun and hopefully will be more functional for me. Don't look too closely at the stitching on this one--it's a prototype to see if I could do it before I invested in all different thread colors and piping and whatnot. I'll learn to sew as I go and these are just for me, so it's all good. If you have even the mildest crafty tendencies, you should try this. If I can do it, so can you.

Post-ride, didn't slip! WINNING.

So thanks to Lauren for helping me find something new to learn while I sit in the career/life/riding holding pattern I'm in, and to Big Red for being so lovely and kind to me. Maybe everything isn't hell? Am I jinxing myself if I say that?

Tricksy Human

What do you have in your pocketses?

Carrotses?

Cookieses?

Jelly beanses?

PEPPERMINTSES!!!

Snow Day Tack Cleaning

It may or may not be apparent to you that I'm the county's leading tack ho. And when it comes to blog land, I'm right up there with SprinklerBandit and Amanda. I have an Antares problem, for sure, that started when I got my saddle. At some point I'll write a post about my used tack and how I acquired the stuff that I have on a serious shoe string budget, but today I'll go through my tack cleaning/rehab process.

I recently had to acquire a new girth for Mo. This horse--with the same saddle, same Ogilvy half pad, same everything--wore a 42" girth when I bought him in August.

I don't know how you wouldn't wanna hug him.

Then he got a little plump so I tracked down a 44". Fast forward to now: He's a solid 50".

Hey, beefcake.

So I THINK we are done expanding here. There's only so much more growing he can do, and if he gets to a 52" girth I'm cutting back on his alfalfa. Thus, I found a stellar deal on a used 50" Antares girth and pulled the trigger. I've been whining lately to SB and Tracy and anyone who will listen about how my tack is clean because I'm not using it because IT IS THE WORST WINTER EVER. And tack cleaning is a major part of my self-care. I dunno, it releases some endorphins or whatever.

Today is a genuine snow day here in northwestern Virginia. Even my daycare center is closed, so I get the day off work (unpaid, of course, but whatever).

YOU'RE KILLIN' ME, SMALLS!

So I dragged out Mo's new girth, which I was pleased with when it arrived, but which clearly did not belong to someone who treasured it the way I will.

Before pics:

Next step: Get a bucket of hot water and the Higher Standards Leather Care cleaner. Because I'm a human on the internet, so I don't use any other soap. I start by using the sponge and cleaning the whole thing that way. And then I break out the toothbrush for any seams (and this girth has a lot of seams) as well as spots with grunge built up, which you can see the underside of the girth had.

One day M saw me cleaning my bridle with a toothbrush.
"Get a hobby," she said.
Let's recall that she graduated Pony Club with her A
and has gone to Rolex. And is a National Examiner. Ha.

After I use the toothbrush with soap, I wipe the whole girth down with a rag, and I get the toothbrush out again. This time, I just get it wet. This is the step that makes the biggest difference: I clean out all the seams with a clean, wet toothbrush. This is how you get the hairs out, and the soap scum, and all that other grunge that makes girths less than perfect.

Then I take a corner of the rag and dry out all those seams. Takes a minute, but it's a minute well spent.

Next step: Conditioning. I don't condition my tack every day. That would be time consuming and bad for the leather, but this girth needed it, and I was cleaning tack because I felt like it. So I broke out the Antares leather conditioner (which I use on Antares stuff and other really nice leather I have, but not on just whatever. Effax is fine for Mo's Harwich bridle, for instance). Antares conditioner, for those who haven't used it, has about the consistency of a body butter kind of lotion. You really have to rub it in, but the effects are fabulous (and not necessarily clear in the pictures). The leather is so soft and silky that I want to cry when I touch it.

And at the end, I have a girth that I know for a fact would pass the US Pony Club formal inspection at the A level, but is also broken in. And it makes me unspeakably happy.

Sigh. So that's how I spent a solid 30 minutes of my morning, and it was well worth it. The only problem is, now the girth is clean! NOW WHAT?

FINGERS. CROSSED.

I just heard from the lady I sold Lex to (sob) that she's going to be bred this month. Let's all cross our fingers that:

DOING WHAT NOW?

1. The breeding takes (the lady thinks it will).

2. The pregnancy is easy on her (look at her conformation, she was made to have babies).

3. The foal is healthy.

4. The foal is a colt who doesn't want to race--a filly would probably just go into the breeding program, and a good racehorse will be doing that instead of living with meeeeeeeeee. The racing talent, of course, we won't know for a long while yet.

I miss this mare every day, all day.

Goals?

I think I might be too much of a pessimist, or too afraid of jinxes, to publicly talk about my goals for my horses and for myself. But because all I can think about right now is what I WANT to be doing, as opposed to what I actually AM doing, here's a crack at some short-range plans for Spring 2015.

Mo
Schooling:
1. Get the right lead figured out. He's a left-lead addict. There's nothing wrong with him physically. We've gotten there before, where it wasn't a big deal. We can get there again. This means cantering a lot.
2. Get the transitions on both leads to happen without a big leap forward or a lot of fuss. I think this is mostly for me to work on.
3. Have a canter I can ride a bit--nothing serious, but steering would be nice. [Are we sensing a theme?]
4. Lose the standing martingale. I have nothing against standing martingales, but he's not going to be a show hunter, and I don't want to feel like I have to have it to keep my nose in place. I'm mostly still using it because the canter is such a hot mess, but once that's all fixed up I think we'll be fine.
5. Once he's in regular work again, quit lunging.

Kissing this nose a lot is a goal too.

Showing:
1. Take him to that adorable hunter show at the end of March. I don't care what classes we enter; I just want us to have a good time and for him to settle in.
2. M told me the schedule for the spring but I forgot it already. I think we're going to the Maryland Horse Trials twice, the Middleburg HT, and something else. Mo will go in the elementary division, which is unrated. I'm not planning on switching back to eventing, but I think this will be marvelous for his confidence. My goals for these are to get him into and out of the dressage ring in one piece, and to give him a confident ride over jumps.

Remember his first ride over a course of poles? CUTE.

Red
Schooling:
1. Get some fitness on him by hacking out regularly.
2. Establish a good connection to the bit in the trot work (he's broke, but he's a jumper, and so his contact can be a little... inconsistent). I foresee dressage lessons with M.
3. Canter over some small jumps every two weeks or so, once fitness has been achieved.
4. See if he'll go XC schooling or if he'll take one look at the water or the banks or whatever and head for the bloody hills.

I miss summer, dammit.

Showing:
1. Whatever sounds fun. I don't have spring goals for him, other than I'd like to take him places, either dressage or show jumping.

Mo Update: Still Cute

I'm in kind of a funny place right now with blogging, because I have regular internet access while I'm farm sitting at M's. But except for whining about the snow, I don't really have anything to say about the horses right now. I'm not riding because I don't have an indoor. So there are no lesson recaps, progress posts, riding photos, nothing. But today the horses stayed in because the ground is suddenly very icy, and so I had to put everyone in the wash stall while I was mucking. When it was Mo's turn, I pulled his rug off because I hadn't really looked at him without it in a couple days. Conclusion: He looks fabulous.

Hmm. Not the most flattering angle.

He's fat but not TOO fat (well, maybe close to too fat). He's quite shiny. And best of all...

Here's my cliche curry comb pic.

He is shedding! That has to mean spring is coming. Right? RIGHT??

As I said to Tracy when I was whining at her on the phone the other day, it doesn't do me any good if spring shows up but my horse is injured from the gross weather, or if my shoulder isn't functional (it's touch and go at the moment--a four year old child tackled me. Yes. He did. And now my never-quite-right, twice-surgical shoulder is screaming at me all the time).

But maybe, maybe, maybe we're getting close to the finish line here. And I really hope so, because there is a FANTASTIC looking show on March 21 that I really want to take him to. Check out the link and prepare to be amused by the class names. It looks relaxing and fun--the perfect first outing for him. But it's less than a month away now, and I want to have ridden him enough between now and then that he isn't totally feral.

Red is doing fine, too. He's adorable as always. Maybe I'll get to ride him next week, we'll just have to see.